I. Field of the Invention
The following description relates to wireless communications systems, and more particularly to systems and methods for providing adaptive broadcast and/or multicast in small areas.
II. Relevant Background
Wireless wide area network systems that cover metropolitan areas and larger regions may broadcast information (e.g., data, voice, audio and video) to multiple terminals simultaneously. These networks may also transmit information using multicast techniques in which terminals share channels that are distributed throughout the network. Broadcasting and multicasting can be contrasted with unicasting, in which copies of a single channel are transmitted to individual terminals.
In both broadcast and multicast techniques, multiple identical transmissions may be required to ensure all terminals correctly receive the transmitted information. For instance, if one terminal fails to receive a portion of a multicast message, that portion may be retransmitted to all the terminals. Such retransmissions inefficiently consume network resources. Moreover, current methods for broadcasting in wide area networks are not optimized to operate within small areas, such as in the vicinity of one or two base stations.